Got a letter in the mail today from BECU, and its irksome news. The credit union says it’s shutting down its Neighborhood Financial Center at the Madison Safeway on July 31. The letter says the lease at that location is up. BECU says its working with Safeway to at least keep an ATM there, as they “are actively seeking other location opportunities in the area to expand our operations.”

Come the beginning of August, the closest BECU Financial Center will become the Broadway Market site at 401 Broadway East.

Boo.

Just as a nice contrast to the common stories of theft in our neighborhood:
We left town for the coast this past weekend, departed Friday afternoon and returned Sunday night.
Upon returning home, we noticed that the sliding glass door on our deck was open. Not just ajar, but all the way open. Had thieves gutted our house and left the door open? Nope, it was me, my stupid mistake, forgetting to close and lock the door after my last trip to the car.
Nothing was taken.
This is particularly notable since the back of our house faces a somewhat public location (I won’t say where, in case I make this mistake again).
So the weekend passed and the only uninvited guests in our defenseless home were a couple of houseflies. Not all is bad in the Central District!
And yes, I will triple check the doors next time.

The new thai joint we first mentioned last month is all set to open tomorrow in Madrona. They’ll be open daily from 11am to 9pm, serving lunch and dinner.

They’re taking over the vacant storefront on 34th just two doors north of Union and a few doors south of the Hi Spot (who have some really tasty lattes and baked goods).

We won’t be able to make it for the opening tomorrow, so if you do, make sure to leave your review and let people know how it is.

From Seattle’s East Precinct, Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Himanee Gupta-Carlson, a writer for the Seattle PostGlobe (founded by former PI writers), and her husband walked all of MLK Boulevard this spring, documenting their trip with pictures and writing along the way.

MLK begins more or less at Madison and continues 8-some miles down into the Rainier Valley.  They describe parts of the CD along the way, including the intersection of MLK and Yesler:

At Yesler: We’ve covered the first five blocks of MLK walking south from Marion. We’re at Yesler, and have climbed a slight incline. Two buses — different routes — just met, doing left turns in unison. This stretch of Yesler is familiar terrain. I walk it, drive it often. I’m always struck by its flora and fauna, wild and overgrown blackberries, sweet pea flowers pouring out of the concrete. At the southeast corner, a substantially sized house on the market two years ago for $600,000 appears abandoned. It’s tagged in blue, black, and white paint.

They walk through the night and are surprised by how empty the street is for much of the time and by the friendliness of people along the way.  The full story is worth a read. 

The saga continues for the classic Madrona homes displaced by the expansion of Epiphany School. Four homes were affected by the expansion, and one of more recent construction was not movable and was destroyed two weeks ago.

The deal fell through on this one, will be demolished Thursday

Old windows salvaged from the soon-to-be demolished house

One of the two houses in limbo, temp. placed on the schools basketball court

A second house, the brown one in the middle of the three along Denny Way, had a tentative buyer who planned to move the house to a spot in Leschi. But that deal has fallen through and it is now scheduled to be demolished on Thursday of this week. Today crews from Second Use Building Materials were working on that house, trying to salvage useable components such as the divided glass windows and old trim.

The other two houses are in a state of limbo, having been temporarily moved from their original sites to the school’s basketball courts on another part of the property. The plan to move them later in July is at risk due to opposition from several property owners along E. Howell, the narrow residential street that runs behind the Epiphany property. The width of the homes would require the temporary removal of several small trees in the city right-of-way and the pruning of much larger trees that hang over the street from a hillside greenbelt. 

The original plan to move the homes on Denny Way, a much larger arterial, wasn’t feasible due to the high cost of dealing with all of the bus trolley wires and other overhead communication and power transmission wiring that runs along that street.

Matt Neely, Epiphany’s Head of School, tells me that the prospective home buyers and Nickels Brothers House Movers has until the end of July to find a way to move the remaining two houses. If that can’t be done, the houses will be demolished.

The whole episode here raises an interesting question about the definition of environmentalism. The residents on Howell define it a very localized, personal way, not wanting to see a change to the leafy, shaded nature of their street. Others point to the hundreds of tons of materials will go to the landfill if the homes are destroyed, and the scores of trees in real forests that will be cut down to build new construction houses on the vacant lots that these homes would otherwise occupy if they could be moved.

Personally, I’m hoping they can work out a deal.

From Seattle’s East Precinct, Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Contact: Katherine Yasi For Immediate Release
206-324-8472 Date: June 27, 2009

KATHERINE YASI AWARDED CHILD CARE CREDENTIAL

Katherine Yasi of Adventure Day Care, a licensed family home childcare in central Seattle has been awarded the Child Development Credential (CDA) in recognition of outstanding work with young children. The credential was awarded by the Council for Professional Recognition in Washington, DC, which represents the early childhood profession.

Katherine Yasi has been providing childcare in her Central District home for ten years. “I started my business when my daughter was just one year old,” said Yasi. “I wanted to create a positive place for urban children to play with each other and interact with the natural environment.”

Parents using childcare are especially concerned today about their children’s welfare. With this in mind, as part of the CDA assessment process, every candidate for the CDA credential is observed working with young children by an early childhood professional. In addition, the candidate must demonstrate the ability to work with families to develop children’s physical and intellectual capabilities in a safe and healthy learning environment.

“Working parents in the city are desperate to find safe, healthy, fun environments for their young children. Family childcare is great because parents can choose a program located in their neighborhood that really matches their specific needs,” said Yasi.

The CDA credential is known to have a positive effect on the quality of childcare. Its impact is especially evident in family childcare settings, the most common form of care for children under 5 years old.

Katherine Yasi is a member of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 925, the family childcare union, and a member of The Washington State Association of Family Child Care Providers.

We’ve got an ever-growing list of potential neighborhood blog features over at Neighborlogs , our little software product that runs CDNews and a bunch of otherneighborhood blogs . But we need more hard data to help us decide what to work on next. 

More mobile tools is an obvious place that could use some focus. But we’re not sure how deeply some of the fancy new phones have penetrated into the neighborhood.

Do you have an iPhone? Plan on getting one? No interest in ever getting one? Let us know in this poll:

I posted a couple of weeks ago about my house being robbed while home. Well, they did it again. We weren’t home this time and they were able to grab a lot more. The night before that my neighbor’s car was broken into and the night before that another one of our neighbor’s house was hit. We live near the corner of MLK & Yesler, and it sounds like our block is getting hit hard this month. Keep those doors and windows locked! (We have house guests who left a basement window open).